Everyone thought she was guilty. We were convinced she was guilty. The jury on the other hand, was not. And since our legal system dictates that a person is innocent until proven guilty in court, Casey Anthony was, and is, a free woman.

From the beginning of the film we can see that Mr. Ashton (played by Rob Lowe) is a big deal. The lead attorney for the State of Florida, Linda Drane Burdick, (played by Elizabeth Mitchell) asked him to take the case as his last before retirement. Ms. Burdick may have been the lead chair officially, but it was pretty clear that it was Mr. Ashton who called the shots. As the movie made abundantly clear, this is a guy who “got the first conviction in the entire world based on DNA evidence.” If someone might not know that already, Mr. Ashton probably makes it abundantly clear to them. (Just a hunch; it seems the guy has quite the healthy ego).

To Mr. Ashton, the Casey Anthony case was perfect: He would win and serve justice. It was a case he couldn’t lose.

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Legal As She Is Spoke is an online project of the Program in Law and Journalism at New York Law School. Our site reports on the state of legal journalism and encourages conversation about the accuracy and felicity of reporting on law. For an explanation of our name, click here.

The Guilty Prosecutor

Last year, LASIS reporter Halina Schiffman-Shilo wrote about her experiences with the UN from Arusha, Tanzania. She's back in the urban jungle now, and is examining human rights abuses here at home, by district attorneys against innocent defendants. Enter, the Guilty Prosecutor.